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Aust shares sneak to six year high

Trevor Chappell

The share market has crept to a new six year high after investors put aside geopolitical concerns arising from the shooting down of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 and focused on company earnings reports in the United States.

Lonsec senior client adviser Michael Heffernan said the loss of almost 300 lives was tragic, but as far as the market was concerned, events such as this tended to have a short-term effect.

"The more important thing as far as the market is concerned is what's going on with reporting season (company earnings reports in the United States), inflation, growth and interest rates," Mr Heffernan said.

Most recent earnings reports from US companies had been positive, and, overall, had been better than expected.

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"We've had the rub-off effects here," he said.

The S&P/ASX200 index and the All Ordinaries posted small gains, edging them to their highest levels since June 2008, a record the market has achieved several times in recent months.

Mr Heffernan said the market was consolidating above the 5,500-point mark ahead of the start of the Australian company reporting season in two weeks.